How long did it take you until you made a awesome batch?

JLivermore said:

This could be completely in my head but the biggest difference is something I like better about my own brews, lack of kind of haze or what I suspect might be chemicals or preservatives in distributed cans/drafts.

Not taste but effect, generally I have found drinking nice booze, whether it's wine, spirits beer or whatever, better quality has less of the nasty haze and less chance of a hangover. Good booze/beer feels better at the time and better the next day. I trust the stuff I make!

Anyone else find this to be the case?

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If it is filtered beer then its not the chemicals so much as the lack of b vitamins. Homebrew has tons of b vitamins from the live yeast and this makes for a faster recovery IMO. Personally my love of homebrew comes from my ability to subtly change anything I dislike. I love dunkelweizen but prefer less clove in them and I can brew them that way. It's all about customization.

Just had a friend taste one, he said it might taste a little like vinegar. I read this could be caused by tannins from over milled grains or steeping too long. Or it's from an infection...

chungking said:

Just had a friend taste one, he said it might taste a little like vinegar. I read this could be caused by tannins from over milled grains or steeping too long. Or it's from an infection...

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Vinegar taste is almost always an infection from what I have seen. Tannins are more astringent, think oversteeped tea or some dry red wines. But other types of sourness can come from other things.

My first two batches, an American wheat and a pumpkin spice brown, were okay. There were some obvious flaws from being a novice brewer that I later read and learned more about, and hopefully I'll be able to apply some of that knowledge towards my future batches. Right now I'm working on a gingerbread brown that's been 2 weeks in the primary and it tastes really great right now. Tomorrow I'll be taking my third reading and then seeing what quantity of vanilla bean/cinnamon stick/fresh ginger vodka tincture tastes best mixed with basically a brown ale. I'm hoping this is my first really great tasking beer, though I might have to mix in some gelatin to clear this one out.

Well, he is the only one who mentioned the vinegar taste. I dont think it tastes like vinegar...I don't think there is an infection. At least there is/was no signs of infection...

I'm curious what the final gravity has been for all these brews as 1.016 from 1.050 still seems high for a pale ale atleased with those ingredients. To me that would taste funny. Also I missed what yeast you used

Used safale s-04 on this one.

And I do usually get rather high fg readings. 1.015-1.020 for most of my lme extract kits. But I was told that is pretty common for extract kits...

Stocktonbrew said:

Dcbw, I have the same problem. What kind of filter did you use? Does it filter chlorine/chloramine? Or do you add campden tablets?

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Morebeer's cylindrical charcoal filter. Any charcoal filter should kill the chlorine. I tried Campden tablets once before I started filtering but the batch had other problems so I can't say if it worked or not. Don't use them anymore with the filter of course.

Im no expert as im fairly new. But you should try something like nottingham to get your fg lower and see if you like it. I have a hunch this is what the problem is. Someone please correct me if im wrong, but to me that sweetness adds a certain twang

My first beer was awesome because I made it!

On the serious side my beers got amazingly better as soon as I built a fermentation chamber and could control my temps. Fermentation temperature is a much overlooked, but much needed aspect of brewing.

dbrewski said:

I do all grain, but have read many times here you want to boil a small portion of the extract for the 60 minutes and save most of it for the last few minutes or even flameout. Boiling the extract accentuates the twang.

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Boiling also darkens the DME in the wort ("browning" from Maillard reaction) and adding it all to the beginning of the boil reduces hop utilization. I add 3lbs to 6gals at the beginning of the boil and the rest at flame-out, except for partial mashes where the grains were 5lbs or more. If that's the case, all the DME goes in at flame-out. I also use 1.5gal tap water in 4.5gals RO water (pre-boil) with a quarter campden tablet, most of the time gypsum.

MI_Troll is TOTALLY right about overcarbing. Seems to me that it accentuates bitter and subdues malt. Also makes it hard to swig, which is no fun.

Stocktonbrewing: as far as I know, no carbon-based water filter can remove chloromines; Only chorine. If your municipal water uses chloromines, you must use campden tabs or age the water if you want to avoid off flavors. The water filter I have doesn't filter any dissolved minerals or chemicals and it's the best unit that's not an RO filtration system.

chungking: S-04 does attenuate a little lower than most and ends up a little sweet. 1.015 is normal for extracts, too. Only one of my batches has been less than 1.014, even with partial mash, and it was a Belgian yeast that ended 1.001

My "awesome" was my 5th batch... It was a Imperial Cascadian Dark IPA, Partial Mash. Tastes like a mildly sweet and malty Amarillo coffee. (My mouth is watering and I think I'll go have one right now, lol!)

My 6th was bottled yesterday and it's an Imperial Saison-IPA, partial. I have some high hopes for it as it tasted good warm and without carbonation, although I didn't dry hop it like I should have.

Many people say stick to known recipes, specially those trying to sell you a kit, but I say go out on a limb and DIY using known recipes for guidelines. For the Saison IPA, I took an AG IPA recipe, substituted 2-row with Maris Otter, added Pilsen DME to make it a certain ABV (9.5%) so it's an Imperial, then I changed all the hops translating their AA values (just to match the Saison funk better), and finally multiplied the specialty grains by the new ABV. I also used Belgian Saison III instead of WLP001. It tasted pretty damn good (being still and luke warm) and I'm definitely looking forward to cracking one open in two weeks.

Good luck, man.

First batch was a golden ale. I want to say amazing, but closer to very good. Definitely something I would buy in a store. Second batch, a pale ale that was okay, but had a weird aftertaste. Third, a rather disappointing stout. Fourth, a terrible english dark ale. Fifth, a great blonde ale. Rather boring, but I find most Kölsch boring, and there was simply nothing notably wrong about it, which was very exciting news to me.

From there, it bounces between very good and good, with a few "okays" thrown in. I think I had it pretty dialed in after 5 batches. Most of it was spent trying to reclaim the glory (through dumb luck) that was the first batch...

To address your problem, the only beers I have been very disappointed in used S-04 - I'm going to blame the yeast here. I wouldn't describe it as vinegary, but it definitely gave it an almost 'wine and coriander' or 'woody bubblegum' kind of ester thing. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/not-loving-s-04-a-363641/

In your position, I would try a nice simple American pale ale with US-05. Something like Northern Brewer's Sierra Madre would be a great choice. Can't go wrong with US-05, and when you're trying to eliminate brewing process problems (or determine if they exist) it's great.

My first 3 batches were good beer, but nothing that was amazing, it wasn't really until my 4th or 5th beer when I started making my own recipes (or modifying ones on the internet) that I finally hit beer that I would call 'almost great'.

wilsojos said:

I would suggest you closely monitor your fermentation temps.

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+1 for this. I think for most newer brewers, the two most important things to getting quality product (assuming you're brewing extract?) are (1) controlling your fermentation temp and (2) giving the beer enough time in the primary before you bottle.

Of course, temp control is easier if you have the right equipment--a dedicated fridge with a temp control is something just about everyone gets around to buying/scrounging sooner or later. In the meantime, if you're having problems with the temp getting too high, try the poor man's swamp cooler--a water bath and a fan, or even just wet towels on the carboy with a fan blowing on it. Most basic American and British ales will suffer taste-wise if the temp inside the fermenter is anything north of 75F, and mid- to high-60's is really where you want to be at. Which requires the ambient temp to be around 60-65F, and constant. If you can figure out a way to do that you'll notice immediate results.

As far as the longer primary goes, regardless of what the instructions your kit came with say, I'd leave any medium gravity beer (OG 1.04-1.065 or so) in the primary for at least two weeks, and three to four weeks if you're experiencing any off flavors. I know there are those who argue that once the beer reaches final gravity and has a couple of extra days for clean up, any additional time spent on the yeast cake is wasted. All I can say from experience is that my beers improved markedly when I started leaving them on the yeast cake for at least a week longer than I previously had. For darker, more complex beers I'll often leave them on the primary for a month now, and I see a huge difference. So take it for what it's worth.

Are there ways to make good beer faster? Absolutely. There are guys who have their process so dialed in that they can make great, finished beer, from kettle to tap, in 12 or 14 days. But for a new brewer just trying to figure out how to make that first, great beer, try 3-4 weeks on the primary at 67F, a week in secondary (if you're into that kind of thing), then a good three weeks in the bottles before you even open one. If you can control your fermentation temps and follow that timeline, you should have very tasty beer by the end of all that waiting.

Don't give up hope brother! Cheers!

I didn't make a truly "awesome" batch until I went All-Grain after about 8 extract batches. The Vanilla-Bourbon-Oak aged stout I made still gets raves from people who tried it even months after they tried it! I have locked the last 6 bottles of it away in the safe for Christmas....it's been very tough not to drink them!

Some of the other comments on here are great, just thought of one other thing that really helped my process early on.

I got lucky on my first two batches--stout and nut brown ale extracts kits from morebeer, almost a decade ago now (!), and they were both really terrific. After that, I had a whole string of so-so beers like you're describing--drinkable, not terrible, but noticeably "homebrew", like how some kids are really nice but noticeably homeschoolers. (No offense intended here, I'm lucky to have married one of them as an adult!)

After four or five ho-hum batches, I decided to focus on one beer style until I could make it as good or better than what I could buy on the shelf. I picked an English Northern Brown Ale because I'm a sucker for British ale styles, and probably made 7 or 8 three-gallon batches of that stuff before I was really happy with it. But by sticking to one style and focusing on the process I was able to figure out some things that I could improve. It also helped enormously for me to be able to drink a 2-week old beer, a 4-week old beer, a 6-week old beer and an 8-week old beer all from the same recipe, because I could compare how they aged and get a sense of when the beer was peaking.

Yes, I was pretty ready to go on to other styles by the time I finished that process (it took about two months in all), but I came out of it a much better brewer, and the last two batches that I made were good enough that I would gladly do a side-by-side test with Newcastle.

If I were going to do it over again, I would probably choose a different style to practice on; specifically, I think doing an American style beer makes more sense, since the English ale yeasts can be pretty complex, obscuring some of the issues created by the brewing process. I might try an American amber using a neutral yeast like US-05, and make a bunch of smaller batches of this in succession, trying to identify how your process differs from one to the other and what the results are. It was a big help for me.

I just tried an old speckled hen British pale ale to compare it to my brew. I was not impressed. In fact, I liked mine better, twang and all. I will not be having an old speckled hen again. Really bad after taste, made my throat felt weird, almost sore. There any other British style pales out there i can try?

I'm going to guess it might be the style of the beer. I was just expecting a cleaner, crisper taste similar to American style pale Ale's...

Well, when I think of a standard British pale ale, Bass always comes to mind. And Fuller's ESB

I enjoy a bass. They are good. Old speckled hen was hard to choke down. It could have gone bad. I can't imagine it gets ordered often...

I realize you are using dry yeast, which i've never used. But the biggest changes i made to take my beer from drinkable to good/great were:

1. Proper pitching rate
2. Temp control during fermentation

I use Mr Malty for calculating pitching rate and when i started using stirplate starters i saw dramatic increase in quality of beer. Also, keeping the fermentation temperature down towards the low side of the suggested temp range made a big difference too.

chungking said:

I enjoy a bass. They are good. Old speckled hen was hard to choke down. It could have gone bad. I can't imagine it gets ordered often...

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Every bottle of Bass Pale Ale I've ever had here in Japan, (actually, now that I think of it, Bass never was high on my list of beers before I left Blighty), has been really lacking in any flavour. Bland and boring is the only way I could express it. Every bottle of Old Speckled Hen/Old Crafty Hen I've had here has left me thinking what a wonderfully, nutty, sweet, yet not cloyingly so, easy to drink and flavourful beer it is. So much so that I decided to buy some Marris Otter, Fuggles, Kent Goldings and use the Crystal 70 I have kicking around to try my hand at all grain and do an OSH clone. Maybe it's just not your cup o' tea but I'd really like to think you just got a sh1tty example of it. see if you can get a bottle, if it was draught that you had that gave you the impression you currently tout, and see if there's a difference.

Haha funny how people have such dramatic perceptions in taste. It was a draft and after the bartender poured it, it had a hazy/cloudiness to it that seemed to fizz away to the top as foam. I was even a few beers deep when I had it and still didnt like it...

That "taste" you're describing is extract twang, and it's from using canned liquid extract and boiling it too long. Try using fresh LME from a plastic tub (not a can) and only boil half it for the full boil, adding the rest at the end. Also, as others have pointed out, temperature control during fermentation is crucial.

To answer your question, during my "first chapter" of homebrewing, all I did was canned kits, and the best of them were drinkable, with that "twang," while the worst were undrinkable paint thinner (fermented with a heating belt!) that ended up getting dumped down the drain. I gave up for a few years.

My "second chapter" started a couple of months ago. Thanks to everything I read and learned here, I completely stepped up my game. My first two batches were extract kits, and still had a bit of that "twang," but not nearly as bad. They were perfectly drinkable, but still not comparable to commercial examples. My third batch was a partial mash IPA ("Laughing Heart IPA," from Papazian's book). The difference was night-and-day. It was fantastic. The next batch was an all-grain pale ale with no extract at all, and I was blown away by how delicious it is. No "twang" at all, easily as good (or better) than local craft beers. But by then, I had really dialed in my process and was employing a repurposed chest freezer as a fermentation chamber, using spring water, and so on.

Fifth batch was an all-grain Dry Irish Stout, also delicious. It should get even better with age, but I don't think it's going to last that long.

Batches 6 through 10 are currently in various stages of fermentation and clarification, but I have no doubt they'll all be equally fantastic.

My very first batch was awesome, and all batches since then have continued to be awesome. I started brewing with my very own partial mash recipe. Aside from minor things, like slightly higher FG than expected, the beer as a whole exceeded my expectations as well as my friends.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I think this question depends on the individual brewer's desire to get it right the first time. I had a recipe in hand, but delayed for a good 4 months before I my actual brewday so that I could soak up as much knowledge as possible.

I've appreciated a lot of the upper echelon IPAs from Kern, Russian River, Alpine, Lagunitas, Lawson's Finest, Hill Farmstead, etc. So it really made me happy that I was able to mimic that type of quality at home on my very first attempt.

This time I did use lme from a plastic tub. Got the kit from Midwest per everyone advising me to. All previous batches were from canned lme. I guess this is what added to my disappointment, cause I switched vendors and thought I'd gotten better fresher ingredients, and would taste the difference.

However, I did boil all the lme for 60 minutes. I will try the late additions next...

Well I did 3 ok extracts, 1 terrible AG, 1 ok AG, and finally one really good Blonde AG. Biggest thing I can suggest is to find a homebrew club to join. That is what I did. We have 3 certified judges which helps a lot. Everyone has tasted my beers and I have gotten a lot of feedback to steer me in the right direction.

Ogri said:

Every bottle of Bass Pale Ale I've ever had here in Japan, (actually, now that I think of it, Bass never was high on my list of beers before I left Blighty), has been really lacking in any flavour. Bland and boring is the only way I could express it.

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Well that's probably because Bass is now made by Molson Coors Brewing. :/

chungking said:

I enjoy a bass. They are good. Old speckled hen was hard to choke down. It could have gone bad. I can't imagine it gets ordered often...

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That's weird, Old Speckled is a well rounded, warming, nutty brown ale. Out of all cask ales I've had it is probably the most consistent, can't really go wrong ordering it. Only thing is that it isn't terribly exciting (although it's good). You might want to get a London Pride or a Black Sheep best bitter for widely available British flavours.

First batch was amazing. Batches 2-4 were off. Im on 5 and I am pretty optimistic.

My off batches were off due to high fermentation temps and my water levels being off.

My first couple of batches were pretty good. My middle batches were kind of lousy. Made a few adjustments (mostly controlling temperatures and changing around the process a little), and the two most recent batches have been pretty close to awesome. Maybe some small tweaks to the recipe here or there, but nothing so major as to be concerned about it.

I ordered a speckled pale ale, or at least that is what the menu said, not the brown ale...

Seems like there's a lot of beginners luck. My first one was good, second was better, then has gone downhill. i didn't really start researching anything till I found this website/app. Seems like I didn't start getting getting crazy off flavors until I started trying to improve my processes.

Can't speak for others, but I think for me the "beginner's luck" was a combination of a couple of things:

- I didn't really have any baseline for what homebrewed beer would taste like, since I didn't know anyone who brewed and had never tried homebrew before. So when I tasted that first batch and it was honest-to-god beer, my expectations were more than met. After a couple of batches I kind of knew what I should expect, so I got better at detecting deviations from the "standard".

- For me, starting to brew my own beer was a doorway into drinking craft brew, not vice versa. I was a poor student, and then a poor enlisted person, so my expensive beer was miller high life instead of PBR. As I started brewing my own and as I started drinking better beer, my palate developed and I figured out what my preferences were. And I got better at detecting problems in my own product.

- I started out on relatively easy to produce styles--stouts, brown ales, esbs &c. As I tried out beers with less complex flavor profiles, the flaws (like ester production from improper fermentation temps) made themselves more readily apparent. You can get away with quite a bit when brewing a stout, since there's so much flavor going on there already it can mask some imperfections.

Also, I think the beer gods give a little extra help to most newbies, to encourage them to keep plugging away at it. If my first four batches had been undrinkable, I don't know that I would have kept going.

I think that always learning more about the brewing process is the biggest part of how a home brewer pushes past that valley of crappy results. I made my first two batches after simply reading through "How to Brew" a couple of times, and they came out alright. Since then I've been poking around these forms a lot, reading a few other books, listening to podcasts, and simply searching Google for all kinds of beer knowledge I hear about. Even after almost a year hiatus from brewing, I feel like the batch I'm getting ready to bottle tomorrow, despite being a boring brown ale extract kit (that I'm turning into a gingerbread brown), is going to be much more exceptional than my first few batches. This is certainly due to things like: taking hydrometer readings and tasting the sample afterwards, controlling fermentation temperature (normal during primary, then warmed up a few days, and now cold crashing), better sanitation practices (Star San FTW), and more.

My first batch was pretty good. It was an American Wheat. The second was NB's Nut Brown Ale. That one wasn't as good as the first, but still drinkable. The Nut Brown has a sharp bite in the after taste and seems to have a low mouth feel (if any of that makes sense). Both of those batches I used a swamp cooler.

My 4th batch was the Caribou Slobber. It seemed everything went wrong from start to finish with this beer. Glad it's just a one gallon kit. It tastes a bit flat too, but doesn't have as sharp of a bite in the aftertaste as the Nut Brown.

My 3rd batch is my home run batch. It's the Dead Ringer IPA. I'm not a big IPA lover, but this I would definitely buy at a store. Of the few IPAs I've sampled, I like Sweetwater's IPA the best. Mine's second best (to me anyways).

That batch put a smile on my face and gave me enough confidence to make the jump to all grain, which is batches 5 and 6 (Phat Tyre & Dawson's Multi Red). Hoping to start those Thanksgiving weekend.

Exactly 37 days. No more, no less.

I have had a bunch. All Brewer's Best kits. Red Ale was good, Milk stout was good, Kolsch was good, Amber was good,m American Light was good, but the Whisky Barrerl Stout and the Summer Ale have been AMAZING!

My All-Grain Summer Ale was better then the BB(I might be biased) but not by much. SWMBO likes the extract better, but I like the AG.

All of my AG have been decent to goo so far and seem to get better with every batch.

I didn't read all the replies, but the most obvious thing is that you have to wait longer than two weeks in the bottle sometimes. Maybe I just brew bad beer, but I find that mine has to sit for a month to taste the way I want.

I'm am no expert by any stretch, but I was thinking that some time in a secondary fermentor will help mellow your beer out also give it more time to let all the solids settle to the bottom. And play with your priming sugars a bit.